This week a survey was released that said there is 6.3 people for every 1 job. There hasn't been this kind of competition for jobs in 70 years (IE Great Depression).
This week a mixed American-Afghan force stormed an Al-Qaeda compound, killing 18 militants.
This week, it was realized that Northern Alaska, once a glacier filled area, is now a viable commercial and recreational port because of global warming.
This week a group of Gay activists will march on Washington to demand equal rights.
Last month a report came out that said August was the deadliest for Afghan citizens. Sen McCain called equivocation on troop increases a "historic error."
This week, a Pakistani force freed hostages held by militants in a 20 hour gun battle that left many dead.
...
Oh yah...and this week President Obama won the Nobel Prize.
Of course, in reaction to the last "happening" detractors went nuts. Chairman Michael Steele was fast to denounce the win for the president and Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck had their usual rants. Wingnuts and some lefties found a reason to learn about the Nobel Prize process, and found it astounding that the nomination deadline was February of this year, meaning that Obama was in office for a total of 10 days when he got nominated. Other than ignoring the fact that he promised to fight global warming, a flagging economy, bring the US back to the table in diplomacy, close Gitmo and eliminate nuclear arms months before he even stepped into office, I understand that actions are stronger than words. Some detractors (not just wingnuts, but lefties too) said that Obama won because he was not George W Bush.
The Nobel Prize win also brought out an unusual occurrence...a consensus of opposition to the prize between elements of the right wing and the Taliban. Woah...
Let me put this in perspective for those who are completely outraged about Obama's win. This Nobel Peace prize winner is picked by a panel of 5 who are recommended by the Norwegian Storting (parliament). The deadline for a nomination is the 1st of February of the year the prize is given. So people are in outrage over a nomination made over 8 months ago, and taken up by a panel of 5 Norwegians?!?! I don't mean to detract from the Nobel Peace Prize, but is it really that important? Does Obama winning the Nobel Prize help us reduce unemployment or beat the Taliban in Afghanistan...?
No...but neither does harping on Obama's win. In fact, I think a recognition by an international body for the diplomatic efforts (yes...efforts, not results) is an inherent win, because it has the possibility of legitimizing further diplomacy. Of course that is all speculation and risk. But, isn't that what the nomination was? I say we should look at it as an investment, a risk, a bet that someone put on Obama that he might fulfill his diplomatic aspirations and make the US a more respected country on the international scene. Think of this win as taking the pile in Hold 'Em, but not yet winning that Bracelet (The winner of the World Series of Poker wins a bracelet...and a lot of cash).
Did Obama win on a bluff or was he holding pocket aces?
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Zombies R Us: Zombieland, and a Quick Look at the Genre
Yesterday night, after a long day at my unpaid internship, I decided to take a trip to Chinatown with a friend (from my previous unpaid internship) to see Zombieland. Zombieland is the zombie-comedy, where the world has been taken over by the living dead. It stars Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin (yup, the same little, innocent Abigail Breslin from Little Miss Sunshine). Director Ruben Fleisher puts a fresh, fun spin on the zombie genre, the likes I have only seen from Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead. It puts you right into the fray and never lets you go. It is filled with gory, zombie "kills of the week" as well as non-stop comedy that can sometimes make you feel bad that you're laughing...uncontrollably. It really is that good. Stir up the buddy-cop element, mixed with a little stoner humor, a twinkie fetish and zombies (and lots of big guns) and you have...Zombieland. Enjoy!
(There is also a extremely funny guest star in the movie...don't look at the IMDB page if you want to be pleasantly surprised.)
ZOMBIES
Zombieland brought back my interest in the Zombie genre, moreso than most recent zombie movies have. While the reasoning behind zombification remains constant in the last couple decades (Viruses), the zombie, and the setting surrounding the zombie have changed to fit the times. I have invested a lot of time and intellectual power into researching the zombie genre, including teaching two undergraduate lectures at UCLA about zombies. So, I am going to take you, the reader, down a historical trip through the zombie genre, starting with the prolific, midnight movie extravaganza Night of the Living Dead in 1968, all the way up to Zombieland. Mostly, I will consider the master of the zombie, George A Romero, and the indelible impact he has made on the genre.
Night of the Living Dead (NOTLD) was shot on a shoestring budget, in the woods of Pennsylvania by rookie filmmaker George A Romero. Originally to be called Night of Anubis, Romero did not even consider his new creations any kind of "Zombie." The zombies before Romero were fantastical voodoo creations from the Bela Lagosi age, where horror and science fiction were more of an outer space/castle in Transylvania type genre. The zombie was exotic, scary and usually arrived in small numbers. Romero turned this characterization into the modern zombies we see today. Night of the Living dead, shot on 16mm looked more like a 90 minute news report than a serious movie. But, it was the content that surpassed the medium with NOTLD; the same content that shocked midnight movie goers at the violent end of the 1960s. Romero used shocking B-roll of zombies munching down on the flesh, innards and bones of their victims while mindlessly surrounding the small house that the survivors lay barricaded in. This B-roll is mixed in with news reports of radiation from Venus, the dead coming to life and instructions on how to dispatch of walking corpses.
What is so significant about NOTLD is that it is the first modern zombie film to reach the taboos of society and reflect the chaos of the end of the 1960s. NOTLD was shot like a news story because of the low budget, but its texture reminded Romero, and moviegoers of the same pictures they had seen on TV. 1967-1968 Tet offensive was being televised in all its bloody glory, and the American people finally got to see the carnage of Vietnam, including the famous shot of a ARVN general executing a suspected Vietcong rebel. They had also seen the televised beatings and killings of civil rights leaders, whose nonviolence was met with "southern hospitality." This kind of American on American, human on human violence was not new. NOTLD reminded us that zombies are just like us. Zombies maybe dead, but they were once people too. NOTLD also put one simple element into the zombie genre: Zombies don't succeed without human error. Most of the conflicts in NOTLD, and in later Romero, and non-Romero films, are as a result of the elements of human nature: panic, competition and survival. The conflicts that arise between survivors end up dooming their survival. The zombies are just a medium through which the story progresses, but they are definitely not the main conflict vehicle. The end of the movie (which I won't reveal to you) reminds of the ultimate chaotic ending to a lot of the idealistic, nonviolent movements of the 1960s. Like the end of the movie, they were met with internal struggle that led to a violent conclusion.
In my lecture, They're Coming To Get You Barbara: Night of the Living Dead and the Violent End to the 1960s" I chronicled the events of 1968 that could have reflected NOTLD. Lets take a look:
Vietnam
-Troop levels reach 500,000
-Johnson backs down from 1968 nomination because of Vietnam
-Negotiations deadlock
-Westmoreland's "light at the end of the tunnel" speech is disregarded after the Tet Offensive
-Mai Lai massacre
-Walter Conkite calls the war "unwinnable"
Civil Right
-Assassination of MLK, Jr.
-Rise of the Black Panthers: beginning of violent non-integration in civil rights, which replaced nonviolent protest
-Race Riots
-Purging of whites from SNCC
-Rise of the Weathermen
Politics and Education
-RFK assassinated
-Nixon elected
-Prague Spring crushed
-Riots in Chicago at Dem. National Convention
-Student revolt at Columbia University
-Students killed in protest in Mexico
-Student riots in France
The next movie I want to consider is Dawn of the Dead (1978)/(2003). Dawn of the Dead was Romero's attack on the excesses of the 1970s, and consumerism in general. What can be more of the a symbol of American consumerism than the shopping mall? Dawn of the Dead puts us right in the middle of the beginning of a zombie apocalypse where a group of survivors take refuge in a shopping mall. Once they arrive the male characters are immediately lured by luxury items that are available without constraints. Ignoring the fact that consumer items beyond food are useless, these characters indulge in the amenities of the mall. One very poignant scene in the movie shows a montage of characters enjoying nice clothes, trying out golf clubs and having a super-market spree of items in the mall. This scene shows, that regardless of the valueless nature of the items, the characters vie for that consumer, middle class lifestyle that they once had, before the zombie outbreak. It also shows that the mall offers a quick fix, short term stimulation that can be complimented by constant indulgence. The mall is also a place of constant contact and fluid relationships. The people you see at the mall are anonymous consumers who have no special connection to each other, except for the need to consume. This constantly changing environment leads to instability in the constructed social hierarchy. Or, in other word, everyone is equal...at the mall. The mall is two systems that work simultaneously, but are traditionally in conflict with each other. The safe haven of capitalism while living in an unstable world, as the goods that are consumed only provide short term satisfaction. In Dawn, the survivors see that guns are a good deterrent, but it is the mall goods that provide their ultimate comfort, even if that comfort is useless and exists in a unstable, zombie filled world.
Dawn of the Dead redefines the zombies in a new light. Zombies in Night of the Living Dead was a problem that exacerbated the human conflicts between living characters (something that is not abandoned in Dawn). In Dawn, zombies are us. Zombies pour into the outskirts of the mall dressed in the clothing they had on before went to work. There are nurses, baseball players, doctors, plumbers, garbage men, etc. They are reduced to their base institutional characterization: defined by their job. But, they are all the same when they come to window shop for flesh at the mall. They are just like the living consumers who come to the mall before it opens to grab those lucrative sale items before everybody else. They, like the characters in the mall, look to consume without restraint. Even the blood looks like ketchup, a favorite consumer condiment. In one scene, Peter, a main character observes the zombies at the door, and says to Fran (female lead) that "they're us." She shivers, then grabs an expensive fur coat. Near the end of the movie, Fran is confronted by Zombie Roger (another character, now zombified), whose face is half gone, presenting us with the conundrum of half dead, half-human looking. Lastly, we are presented with criticisms by the media during the movie that we have to contain our waste by feeding the zombies (an idea that was put in the original Dawn script). This is reminiscent of Jonathan Swift's satire "A Modest Proposal" where he suggests that impoverished Irish eat their babies, in response to Thomas Malthus' proposal on population and food supplies. Dawn certainly presents a likely result of that satire.
Reactions to Dawn of the Dead were as contradictory as the movie themes. The experience was lauded heavily by the same culture that the movie set out to satirize. In my lecture "Dawn of the Dead: Consumer Culture and the 70s" I emphasized audience reactions, and the reasons Dawn became the highest grossing horror flick that year. The attractiveness comes from the familiarity that the moviegoers saw in Dawn. In Night, the setting was an rural farmhouse, which most of the urban moviegoers could not identify with. But, a shopping mall was a mainstay in American culture at the end of the 70s. This consuming, whether its by happy-go-lucky survivors or flesh-eating zombies, is a routine experience for the average moviegoer in 1978. The "happy shopper" mentality was ripped to shreds...literally. Whether or not this caused shoppers to realize some of their contradictory consuming habits is to be seen, but it certainly shows that the critique of consumer habits is not exclusive to Marxist theorists, but can be realized through the everyday experiences of your regular shopper...or zombie.
Lastly, I want to go through the modern day zombie with consideration of Land of the Dead (2005), Diary of the Dead (2007), 28 Days Later (2002) and Zombieland (2009). All of these movies contain an element that puts them in the same light at Night and Dawn of the Dead. They blatantly, moreso that Night and Dawn, reflect an opinion about a overarching cultural theme in society, or they present a total apocalypse. 28 Days Later gives the audience the perspective of someone with a "blank slate" who wakes up after a biking accident to find that London is empty, and inhabited by zombies infected with "rage." This Danny Boyle directed, Digital Video zombie flick is a reference to the hype over super viruses. Diary of the Dead (2007) is supposedly set at the beginning of the infection, coinciding with Night of the Living dead. College students, shooting a student film are caught up in the Zombie apocalypse and face the consequences. This movie is interspersed with production of the student film, which is shot on amateurish consumer grade cameras for a viral audience. This film reflects the youtube culture of viral videos, as well as the media bias. The film blurs the line between a film-within-a-film by employing the use of digital film making to keep the viewer questioning whether they are watching the product of the students' film, or the film itself.
Lastly, Land of the Dead and Zombieland deal with the concept of total zombie apocalypse. Land of the Dead is Romero's critique of the corporate culture, or a bloody, zombie Frank Capra movie, with a less-than-desirable ending. It is an oppressed against the oppressor, with zombies as a sideshow. In the movie, one corporation controls the last vestige of human existence in a well fortified city. This corporation controls the lives of all in the city, whose only alternative is to take their chances with the zombiefied outside. In times of crises, like in Rome, the empire must provide entertainment to get the masses to not think about the zombie majority, so they put on gladiator shows, which put zombies against humans. Eventually, a band of soldiers are fed up and they decide to unleash the horde on the city. It solves their short term goals, but alas, dooms the rest of humanity. Zombieland offers the same apocalyptic message, but instead gives us the smaller picture. It is about personal relationships and the acceptance of the zombie world. It is even instructional, telling the viewers how they can survive, once a zombie apocalypse happens. In times where people have accepted giving up luxuries and pinching pennies in a recession, and with instructional mediums helping those in trouble survive, this movie is appropriate. Just like Harrelson's and Eisenberg's character have accepted the zombie apocalypse, and find ways to survive from moment to moment, conflict to conflict, those who have weathered the recession have found, as Eisenberg's character says "to appreciate the little things."
Zombies are us. They are the reflection of our fears and our mistakes. But, more importantly they bring out the true nature, just like a long night of drinking would do to someone's personality. The riding message in zombie films is that any kind of cultural medium is a reflection of its times and that regardless of the supernatural element of the living dead, there are areas that evoke familiarity and realism that make zombies scary. The settings, whether its a barn in Pennsylvania, a Mall or Sunset Blvd. are realistic places familiar to the audience, which puts them in an uneasy position questioning the reality of zombies, and the reality of their own habits. Dawn showed us that consumerism can be self defeating (or self-gorging) and Zombieland put those elements of wonder and fun (Beverly Hills, Texas and a Fair) in a light of pure terror. All of the movies prove that zombies, while a conflict medium, do not produce most elements of the plot. It is the conflict between living characters that determine whether or not they will survive the zombie apocalypse.
(There is also a extremely funny guest star in the movie...don't look at the IMDB page if you want to be pleasantly surprised.)
ZOMBIES
Zombieland brought back my interest in the Zombie genre, moreso than most recent zombie movies have. While the reasoning behind zombification remains constant in the last couple decades (Viruses), the zombie, and the setting surrounding the zombie have changed to fit the times. I have invested a lot of time and intellectual power into researching the zombie genre, including teaching two undergraduate lectures at UCLA about zombies. So, I am going to take you, the reader, down a historical trip through the zombie genre, starting with the prolific, midnight movie extravaganza Night of the Living Dead in 1968, all the way up to Zombieland. Mostly, I will consider the master of the zombie, George A Romero, and the indelible impact he has made on the genre.
Night of the Living Dead (NOTLD) was shot on a shoestring budget, in the woods of Pennsylvania by rookie filmmaker George A Romero. Originally to be called Night of Anubis, Romero did not even consider his new creations any kind of "Zombie." The zombies before Romero were fantastical voodoo creations from the Bela Lagosi age, where horror and science fiction were more of an outer space/castle in Transylvania type genre. The zombie was exotic, scary and usually arrived in small numbers. Romero turned this characterization into the modern zombies we see today. Night of the Living dead, shot on 16mm looked more like a 90 minute news report than a serious movie. But, it was the content that surpassed the medium with NOTLD; the same content that shocked midnight movie goers at the violent end of the 1960s. Romero used shocking B-roll of zombies munching down on the flesh, innards and bones of their victims while mindlessly surrounding the small house that the survivors lay barricaded in. This B-roll is mixed in with news reports of radiation from Venus, the dead coming to life and instructions on how to dispatch of walking corpses.
What is so significant about NOTLD is that it is the first modern zombie film to reach the taboos of society and reflect the chaos of the end of the 1960s. NOTLD was shot like a news story because of the low budget, but its texture reminded Romero, and moviegoers of the same pictures they had seen on TV. 1967-1968 Tet offensive was being televised in all its bloody glory, and the American people finally got to see the carnage of Vietnam, including the famous shot of a ARVN general executing a suspected Vietcong rebel. They had also seen the televised beatings and killings of civil rights leaders, whose nonviolence was met with "southern hospitality." This kind of American on American, human on human violence was not new. NOTLD reminded us that zombies are just like us. Zombies maybe dead, but they were once people too. NOTLD also put one simple element into the zombie genre: Zombies don't succeed without human error. Most of the conflicts in NOTLD, and in later Romero, and non-Romero films, are as a result of the elements of human nature: panic, competition and survival. The conflicts that arise between survivors end up dooming their survival. The zombies are just a medium through which the story progresses, but they are definitely not the main conflict vehicle. The end of the movie (which I won't reveal to you) reminds of the ultimate chaotic ending to a lot of the idealistic, nonviolent movements of the 1960s. Like the end of the movie, they were met with internal struggle that led to a violent conclusion.
In my lecture, They're Coming To Get You Barbara: Night of the Living Dead and the Violent End to the 1960s" I chronicled the events of 1968 that could have reflected NOTLD. Lets take a look:
Vietnam
-Troop levels reach 500,000
-Johnson backs down from 1968 nomination because of Vietnam
-Negotiations deadlock
-Westmoreland's "light at the end of the tunnel" speech is disregarded after the Tet Offensive
-Mai Lai massacre
-Walter Conkite calls the war "unwinnable"
Civil Right
-Assassination of MLK, Jr.
-Rise of the Black Panthers: beginning of violent non-integration in civil rights, which replaced nonviolent protest
-Race Riots
-Purging of whites from SNCC
-Rise of the Weathermen
Politics and Education
-RFK assassinated
-Nixon elected
-Prague Spring crushed
-Riots in Chicago at Dem. National Convention
-Student revolt at Columbia University
-Students killed in protest in Mexico
-Student riots in France
The next movie I want to consider is Dawn of the Dead (1978)/(2003). Dawn of the Dead was Romero's attack on the excesses of the 1970s, and consumerism in general. What can be more of the a symbol of American consumerism than the shopping mall? Dawn of the Dead puts us right in the middle of the beginning of a zombie apocalypse where a group of survivors take refuge in a shopping mall. Once they arrive the male characters are immediately lured by luxury items that are available without constraints. Ignoring the fact that consumer items beyond food are useless, these characters indulge in the amenities of the mall. One very poignant scene in the movie shows a montage of characters enjoying nice clothes, trying out golf clubs and having a super-market spree of items in the mall. This scene shows, that regardless of the valueless nature of the items, the characters vie for that consumer, middle class lifestyle that they once had, before the zombie outbreak. It also shows that the mall offers a quick fix, short term stimulation that can be complimented by constant indulgence. The mall is also a place of constant contact and fluid relationships. The people you see at the mall are anonymous consumers who have no special connection to each other, except for the need to consume. This constantly changing environment leads to instability in the constructed social hierarchy. Or, in other word, everyone is equal...at the mall. The mall is two systems that work simultaneously, but are traditionally in conflict with each other. The safe haven of capitalism while living in an unstable world, as the goods that are consumed only provide short term satisfaction. In Dawn, the survivors see that guns are a good deterrent, but it is the mall goods that provide their ultimate comfort, even if that comfort is useless and exists in a unstable, zombie filled world.
Dawn of the Dead redefines the zombies in a new light. Zombies in Night of the Living Dead was a problem that exacerbated the human conflicts between living characters (something that is not abandoned in Dawn). In Dawn, zombies are us. Zombies pour into the outskirts of the mall dressed in the clothing they had on before went to work. There are nurses, baseball players, doctors, plumbers, garbage men, etc. They are reduced to their base institutional characterization: defined by their job. But, they are all the same when they come to window shop for flesh at the mall. They are just like the living consumers who come to the mall before it opens to grab those lucrative sale items before everybody else. They, like the characters in the mall, look to consume without restraint. Even the blood looks like ketchup, a favorite consumer condiment. In one scene, Peter, a main character observes the zombies at the door, and says to Fran (female lead) that "they're us." She shivers, then grabs an expensive fur coat. Near the end of the movie, Fran is confronted by Zombie Roger (another character, now zombified), whose face is half gone, presenting us with the conundrum of half dead, half-human looking. Lastly, we are presented with criticisms by the media during the movie that we have to contain our waste by feeding the zombies (an idea that was put in the original Dawn script). This is reminiscent of Jonathan Swift's satire "A Modest Proposal" where he suggests that impoverished Irish eat their babies, in response to Thomas Malthus' proposal on population and food supplies. Dawn certainly presents a likely result of that satire.
Reactions to Dawn of the Dead were as contradictory as the movie themes. The experience was lauded heavily by the same culture that the movie set out to satirize. In my lecture "Dawn of the Dead: Consumer Culture and the 70s" I emphasized audience reactions, and the reasons Dawn became the highest grossing horror flick that year. The attractiveness comes from the familiarity that the moviegoers saw in Dawn. In Night, the setting was an rural farmhouse, which most of the urban moviegoers could not identify with. But, a shopping mall was a mainstay in American culture at the end of the 70s. This consuming, whether its by happy-go-lucky survivors or flesh-eating zombies, is a routine experience for the average moviegoer in 1978. The "happy shopper" mentality was ripped to shreds...literally. Whether or not this caused shoppers to realize some of their contradictory consuming habits is to be seen, but it certainly shows that the critique of consumer habits is not exclusive to Marxist theorists, but can be realized through the everyday experiences of your regular shopper...or zombie.
Lastly, I want to go through the modern day zombie with consideration of Land of the Dead (2005), Diary of the Dead (2007), 28 Days Later (2002) and Zombieland (2009). All of these movies contain an element that puts them in the same light at Night and Dawn of the Dead. They blatantly, moreso that Night and Dawn, reflect an opinion about a overarching cultural theme in society, or they present a total apocalypse. 28 Days Later gives the audience the perspective of someone with a "blank slate" who wakes up after a biking accident to find that London is empty, and inhabited by zombies infected with "rage." This Danny Boyle directed, Digital Video zombie flick is a reference to the hype over super viruses. Diary of the Dead (2007) is supposedly set at the beginning of the infection, coinciding with Night of the Living dead. College students, shooting a student film are caught up in the Zombie apocalypse and face the consequences. This movie is interspersed with production of the student film, which is shot on amateurish consumer grade cameras for a viral audience. This film reflects the youtube culture of viral videos, as well as the media bias. The film blurs the line between a film-within-a-film by employing the use of digital film making to keep the viewer questioning whether they are watching the product of the students' film, or the film itself.
Lastly, Land of the Dead and Zombieland deal with the concept of total zombie apocalypse. Land of the Dead is Romero's critique of the corporate culture, or a bloody, zombie Frank Capra movie, with a less-than-desirable ending. It is an oppressed against the oppressor, with zombies as a sideshow. In the movie, one corporation controls the last vestige of human existence in a well fortified city. This corporation controls the lives of all in the city, whose only alternative is to take their chances with the zombiefied outside. In times of crises, like in Rome, the empire must provide entertainment to get the masses to not think about the zombie majority, so they put on gladiator shows, which put zombies against humans. Eventually, a band of soldiers are fed up and they decide to unleash the horde on the city. It solves their short term goals, but alas, dooms the rest of humanity. Zombieland offers the same apocalyptic message, but instead gives us the smaller picture. It is about personal relationships and the acceptance of the zombie world. It is even instructional, telling the viewers how they can survive, once a zombie apocalypse happens. In times where people have accepted giving up luxuries and pinching pennies in a recession, and with instructional mediums helping those in trouble survive, this movie is appropriate. Just like Harrelson's and Eisenberg's character have accepted the zombie apocalypse, and find ways to survive from moment to moment, conflict to conflict, those who have weathered the recession have found, as Eisenberg's character says "to appreciate the little things."
Zombies are us. They are the reflection of our fears and our mistakes. But, more importantly they bring out the true nature, just like a long night of drinking would do to someone's personality. The riding message in zombie films is that any kind of cultural medium is a reflection of its times and that regardless of the supernatural element of the living dead, there are areas that evoke familiarity and realism that make zombies scary. The settings, whether its a barn in Pennsylvania, a Mall or Sunset Blvd. are realistic places familiar to the audience, which puts them in an uneasy position questioning the reality of zombies, and the reality of their own habits. Dawn showed us that consumerism can be self defeating (or self-gorging) and Zombieland put those elements of wonder and fun (Beverly Hills, Texas and a Fair) in a light of pure terror. All of the movies prove that zombies, while a conflict medium, do not produce most elements of the plot. It is the conflict between living characters that determine whether or not they will survive the zombie apocalypse.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Some Fun 9/12 Protest Videos
The messages that these people are touting are the result of generalized misinformation fed to them by people like Glenn Beck. It looks like people are just angry that they have experienced a slumping economy and high job losses. Like I had mentioned in other posts, the highly conservative element of the population seems to come out during times of Depression, especially when it comes to popular media. But popular media, like Glenn Beck, should never be taken literally. His ad emotional arguments and cathartic diatribes are nothing but generalizations, dramatizations and hyperbolic statements. His argument is a skeleton with no tissue, organs, muscles or marrow. Hollow bones.
My question for the protesters: Who gives a shit about birth certificates, religious inclinations and "czars" (a position started before Obama) when we are fighting a war, fixing the economy, tackling global warming, dealing with Iran and containing North Korea? There are more important problems out there.
But, it is your right to protest. And, maybe its possible that other protesters not interviewed have better ideas, or more progressive stances on ACTUAL PROBLEMS.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Housing and the American Dream: A Short History, and a Comparison to Healthcare
Since the recession began and the housing bubble burst, I have been following news about economic growth and educating myself in the intricacies of real estate and economic indicators (mostly job growth and vigorously following the rise and fall of stocks). The recession and the economy was the first inherited problem that Obama vowed to take on, even before we tacked on the word "administration." In his campaign, he promised to pass another stimulus bill that would help jumpstart the economy and put more people to work. The Bush administration had passed a similar stimulus bill that gave households a 300,600 or 1200 dollar check based on income and marital status. He also set up the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to stabilize troubled financial institutions (see Bear-Sterns, Lehman Bros., AIG, etc) All of this alienated Bush from many fiscal conservatives who would have rather cut services than spent more money, especially those seeing an imminent economic crises. Bush banked (no pun intended) on the idea that these checks would be spent to stimulate the economy and we would avoid a huge downturn. Of course, this money was mostly deposited into savings accounts or used to pay bills, or in my parents case, donated to the Obama campaign. So, when Obama came into office, the first major bill he signed was the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which injected nearly 900 billion into the economy. Fiscal conservatives fought tooth and nail to get it reduced from its original 1 trillion dollar price-tag, and complained that Obama was going on a unregulated spending spree, which would translate into higher costs for the American people. They also believed that with government bailouts came government control, which is something much worse that simple business regulation. With the government (and the people) taking a financial stake in companies like GM, conservatives had a field day, bemoaning socialism in the Democratic party and lack of oversight in bailing out unsavory financial institutions.
What has happened since? Obama has defended his Stimulus Bill, which had wide support from his economic advisers, as well as my favorite economist, Paul Krugman. Obama has articulated to his opponents that the bill has a long term affect on it, and the economy will not see the full force of its spending power until at least 2010. But, the American people want recovery fast, and now, so they responded to the falling economy and job losses as a failure of the administration in its Stimulus bill. Unemployment remains at 9.7-9.8% and economists forecast it will hit 10% by 2010, and won't drop off until 2011. Job losses have slowed significantly and the stock market is nearing 10,000. Nontheless, jobs are being lost and the jump in the stock market is mostly due to strategic cost cutting and layoffs by companies, not forward moving growth and/or profit. The economy is recovering, but we will not see return to growth for another couple years.
But, what about the housing market? The bursting of the "housing bubble" caused house values to plummet, leading to mortgage defaulting and massive foreclosures. This mostly happened because of highly unethical practices by organizations like Countrywide in packaging high risk mortgages as securities and selling them off to firms like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack. Of course, these high risk mortgages were a result of the late 90s idea that everybody should have access to a house. This involved the risky business of giving people with low credit "sweet deal"mortgage rates on housing. Someone with low credit who wanted a house could get one at a 3% starting rate. But, soon enough the mortgage rate went up, it was no longer possible to pay off the mortgage with just their salary. But, the house value had increase dramatically, so they borrowed against the equity of the house. Soon, enough they could not pay off their higher mortgage rate, and defaulted on their loans. Well, you can imagine what came next. All the defaults on these high risk mortgages packed as securities translated into crises with companies that invested in these securities, and we're left with trillions in mortgage debt until they were "bailed out" by the government. What would have happened if the government let some of these companies fail? Most likely, financial catastrophe, but here in my blogosphere, we don't deal in normative statements.
My feelings about giving everyone housing regardless of financial stability aside (I am against it...there, I said it, but you can't be mad at a government that uses deregulation and risky lending practices at a time of prosperity), I always asked myself about how the American Dream of owning a house turned into the crises we have today. In another post I explored the idea of credit, and how credit had evolved into the system it is today. The theme was that when people started identifying themselves with what they owned, they began to spend beyond their means because of the access to "pay-later" credit. This extended into not just the arena of appliances and possessions, but into the housing and automobile industries, and stock market loan practices (see Buying on Margin). All of this access to credit, along with investment of money into shattered economies abroad led to financial interconnectedness, and created an environment whereby failure would mean worldwide financial depression. And...you know happened in 1929.
How does this apply to the housing market? Well, it would be a misnomer to call it a market, if you lived in the mid 18th Century, when the idea of Manifest Destiny and the "American Dream" was in its infant stages. The first incarnation of the American Dream was a an idea that Americans would rule the continent from "sea to shining sea" and create a self-reliant, independent yeoman farmer nation, much like Thomas Jefferson had touted. To live in your own house, built by your own hand, on your own land was the fulfillment of the American Dream. So, the government tried to make that happen by facilitating easy access to land, through the Homestead Act, and the breakup of Native American lands through legislation like the Dawes Severalty Act (look them up). But, the American dream was transformed once new technology made it easier to access wealth with less work. But, one idea remained: Owning your own home. At the end of the 19th century, with the era of Big Business ("Gilded Age") and Railroads, people began to move into cities and worked in backbreaking jobs and lived in high rent, disease ridden tenements. Once a reform movement came along (Progressives) they promised to bring housing back to masses, or at least reform the tenements. Progressives pressured governments to sign reform bills, support cheap housing, beautify cities and facilitate access to recreation for the masses. Up until then, robber barons like Henry Clay Fricke, Andrew Carnegie, JP Morgan and John D Rockefeller owned large estates and restricted access to housing. By the time the depression arrived, many people lacked proper housing.
In the Depression era, a huge experiment in government took place. FDR's New Deal expanded the power of the government to attempt to pull the country out of the worst depression in its history. One of these programs was to have access to public, government provided housing. Started under the Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA) before the depression, efficient housing in the Fredrick Winslow Taylor model (Taylorism) was a necessary, especially for those who could not afford it. Into the depression, FDR set up the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Public Works Administration (PWA) Housing Division in order to streamline government supported housing. This was followed by the United States Housing Administration (USHA)who facilitated large successes in creating housing for the masses at a low cost. Regardless of their success, government-run housing was attacked by conservatives, who saw government intervention as inefficient socialism. In the post-war era, Senator McCarthy from Wisconsin set up Congressional hearings to analyze the condition of housing in the US. He used his congressional committee as a platform to attack public housing and praise the private industry as the true medium through which the country could solve its housing problem. With the passing of the GI Bill, and the construction of "model communities" and new suburbs, housing and education became accessible.Or, so it seemed.
At this point, the American Dream was a house in the suburbs. Of course, this dream was only available to White, Christians, as private housing organizations used redlining and racism to prevent minorities, Blacks and Jews from owning houses. Housing in the post-War era was much different than the "investment" that many saw as housing in the post-Cold War era. To have a house, a stable (white) family with a working father and a housewife mother was a necessary domestic bulwark against Communism. It was a social value more than a financial investment to have a house. Housing was cherished as something you could access, and pay off in about 20 years. A house was not something that a family invested in order to turn it over in a couple years to make money on their original investment. There was a social conscience that encouraged stability, not risk. It was an contradictory society, insomuch that encouraged conformity as a stable obstacle to...conformity. Regardless of the nuanced problems of Cold-War domestic ideology, there was a common enemy to work against, and stability in the home was a sure-fire way to contain that enemy. But, what happened when the myth of the Communist monolith was debunked? In my opinion, the protections given to home owners, coupled with a new generation of excess and greed (See the movie Wall Street) remade housing as just another investment. The richest people in the US became either the tech geniuses, or the real estate moguls. In the last decade, it was 4 times more likely to find someone investing in a house in excess of 2,000 square ft than it was in the 1970s. Housing was connected with financing and easy access to credit for people who recently could not afford mortgage payments allowed for a widespread, albeit unstable, housing market.
Like the instability caused by easy credit access in the Depression era, the instability in the housing market caused a financial crises. But, a recent article in the LA Times has articulated that point that this housing crises is not something that home owners will be able to bounce back from, easily. The article suggests that maybe it's time to return to the post-war era ideology that stability in the home is a pathway to stability in life, and that high risk investments, specially when one cannot possibly afford the consequences is foolish.
Healthcare Debate and Housing (Ooooh...a subtopic)
As promised in the title, I will make a comparison to the Healthcare debate. This is a historical comparison, and has to do with the attempt to build government backed public housing in the New Deal and Post-war eras. As mentioned in the above passages, FDR tried to encourage the growth of public government backed housing in during the Depression in order to give the masses access to affordable housing. This idea was attacked by many groups including the US Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Real Estate Boards and the Savings and Loan League, all who would benefit tremendously from a private housing market. They believed that once the government sold houses, it would come into competition with private industry and undercut progress towards efficient housing. They went so far as to say people would be discouraged from spending on mortgages if they knew the government was in the housing business. The government charged, after FDR's victory in 1937, that housing was a "perpetual social obligation" and that eradication of the slums and providing good housing for low income families was necessary. The government wanted to provide an alternative to private housing that would make sure cost would not be a deciding factor in gauging home quality and access. The government wanted to make housing a right for all Americans and the Real Estate Lobby wanted to encourage renting. They advertised that private companies could offer low cost housing for everyone, and government intervention would undercut competition to lower the cost of quality housing.
During the era, an experiment in cooperative housing became a source of awe. The Greenbelt housing cooperative created by and underwritten by the guidelines of the Resettlement Administration used cooperative business ventures (stores, shopping centers, markets) and a cooperative local government model to create a self-sufficient town model, on a small budget. According to Rosalyn Baxandall and Elizabeth Ewen, authors of "Picture Windows" the cooperative encompassed every aspect of life including preventative medical care, transportation, citizen's associations, baseball teams, newspapers and even a credit union. But this successful experiment was ignored by private housing advocates.
In the post-war era, under the Truman administration, the government passed the Taft Ellender Wagner Act (TEW), which was a conglomerate of New Deal legislation to provide housing for people who the private industry could not assist without taking a profit loss, which made them prime for public assistance. Before he became the Communist witch hunter, Senator Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin had a hearing on housing. He used his position as chairman of the Housing Committee to attack public housing and discredit TEW. He made several highly publicized visits to public housing complexes and declared them decrepit, and a breeding ground for socialists and communists. He showed his bias by giving public housing advocates less time to testify during hearings than private industry analysts. The private housing industry put on a campaign that highlighted the "socialist dangers" of public housing. As "Picture Windows" states, they put out fliers, leaflets, petitions and cartoons to create the illusion that there was a grassroots campaign against public housing. They chose to forget that this grassroots campaign was underwritten and highly organized by the Real Estate Lobby and Savings and Loan, who were both private housing advocates. Private housing advocates also chose to ignore the fact that many private housing companies had failed to provide adequate housing for everyone, especially at a time when home ownership was defined with containment of communists. Lastly, private industry was hell bent on removing government from housing, but they still supported government subsidies to home owners in order to obtain housing. In other words "the real estate interests wanted government out of the construction end of housing, but they were happy to be eating out of the hidden hand of government." (Picture Windows, 114).
Does this all sounds familiar? A system in need of reform is co-opted by the government to provide access to that system because widespread access is an "inherent right." But, government intervention in that said system leads to "socialism" and inefficiency, even though the current system does not provide that service efficiently anyways. And, there is a so-called "grassroots" protest against such an intervention, which is really underwritten by conservative politicians who are against a government role in that system. And, it has been repeated over and over again that the system is an alternative to the public system, whose abuses do not provide services to low income individuals. But, those against a public option in that system are happy to be using a government supported idea, even though they decry that government in the first place. Oh yah...there is also an idea to provide experiments in cooperatives in that system.
Am I being too vague? Is the comparison not extremely obvious?
Government run housing is not so glamorous, now. Just take a look at the projects in NY City or Public Housing in Detroit or East LA. People live in it, but the neighborhood is violent prone, and the quality of housing is low. But, that is because we are willing, without the blink of an eye, or the opening of a history book, to cut funding to public initiatives once a crises caused by unregulated private industry hits us in the pocketbook. We hold on to the idea that private industry is the end all, and that everything else, especially if its government run is inherently inefficient. But, at the same time we need government spending to increase because private industry cannot give universal access to basic rights. Just look at how people hate the idea that the government would ever touch their Medicare.
Is it a sure fact that any government intervention into a highly privatized industry means undercutting of competition, and ultimately more government growth to bolster that industry? Is there any role for government in private industry? What would private industry look like without any government regulation? Can we have a private industry whose services are deemed universal for all Americans, provide those services efficiently without government assistance?
There may never be a clear cut answer to any of these question. But, one thing for sure is that America will never lose its contempt for the government.
What has happened since? Obama has defended his Stimulus Bill, which had wide support from his economic advisers, as well as my favorite economist, Paul Krugman. Obama has articulated to his opponents that the bill has a long term affect on it, and the economy will not see the full force of its spending power until at least 2010. But, the American people want recovery fast, and now, so they responded to the falling economy and job losses as a failure of the administration in its Stimulus bill. Unemployment remains at 9.7-9.8% and economists forecast it will hit 10% by 2010, and won't drop off until 2011. Job losses have slowed significantly and the stock market is nearing 10,000. Nontheless, jobs are being lost and the jump in the stock market is mostly due to strategic cost cutting and layoffs by companies, not forward moving growth and/or profit. The economy is recovering, but we will not see return to growth for another couple years.
But, what about the housing market? The bursting of the "housing bubble" caused house values to plummet, leading to mortgage defaulting and massive foreclosures. This mostly happened because of highly unethical practices by organizations like Countrywide in packaging high risk mortgages as securities and selling them off to firms like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack. Of course, these high risk mortgages were a result of the late 90s idea that everybody should have access to a house. This involved the risky business of giving people with low credit "sweet deal"mortgage rates on housing. Someone with low credit who wanted a house could get one at a 3% starting rate. But, soon enough the mortgage rate went up, it was no longer possible to pay off the mortgage with just their salary. But, the house value had increase dramatically, so they borrowed against the equity of the house. Soon, enough they could not pay off their higher mortgage rate, and defaulted on their loans. Well, you can imagine what came next. All the defaults on these high risk mortgages packed as securities translated into crises with companies that invested in these securities, and we're left with trillions in mortgage debt until they were "bailed out" by the government. What would have happened if the government let some of these companies fail? Most likely, financial catastrophe, but here in my blogosphere, we don't deal in normative statements.
My feelings about giving everyone housing regardless of financial stability aside (I am against it...there, I said it, but you can't be mad at a government that uses deregulation and risky lending practices at a time of prosperity), I always asked myself about how the American Dream of owning a house turned into the crises we have today. In another post I explored the idea of credit, and how credit had evolved into the system it is today. The theme was that when people started identifying themselves with what they owned, they began to spend beyond their means because of the access to "pay-later" credit. This extended into not just the arena of appliances and possessions, but into the housing and automobile industries, and stock market loan practices (see Buying on Margin). All of this access to credit, along with investment of money into shattered economies abroad led to financial interconnectedness, and created an environment whereby failure would mean worldwide financial depression. And...you know happened in 1929.
How does this apply to the housing market? Well, it would be a misnomer to call it a market, if you lived in the mid 18th Century, when the idea of Manifest Destiny and the "American Dream" was in its infant stages. The first incarnation of the American Dream was a an idea that Americans would rule the continent from "sea to shining sea" and create a self-reliant, independent yeoman farmer nation, much like Thomas Jefferson had touted. To live in your own house, built by your own hand, on your own land was the fulfillment of the American Dream. So, the government tried to make that happen by facilitating easy access to land, through the Homestead Act, and the breakup of Native American lands through legislation like the Dawes Severalty Act (look them up). But, the American dream was transformed once new technology made it easier to access wealth with less work. But, one idea remained: Owning your own home. At the end of the 19th century, with the era of Big Business ("Gilded Age") and Railroads, people began to move into cities and worked in backbreaking jobs and lived in high rent, disease ridden tenements. Once a reform movement came along (Progressives) they promised to bring housing back to masses, or at least reform the tenements. Progressives pressured governments to sign reform bills, support cheap housing, beautify cities and facilitate access to recreation for the masses. Up until then, robber barons like Henry Clay Fricke, Andrew Carnegie, JP Morgan and John D Rockefeller owned large estates and restricted access to housing. By the time the depression arrived, many people lacked proper housing.
In the Depression era, a huge experiment in government took place. FDR's New Deal expanded the power of the government to attempt to pull the country out of the worst depression in its history. One of these programs was to have access to public, government provided housing. Started under the Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA) before the depression, efficient housing in the Fredrick Winslow Taylor model (Taylorism) was a necessary, especially for those who could not afford it. Into the depression, FDR set up the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Public Works Administration (PWA) Housing Division in order to streamline government supported housing. This was followed by the United States Housing Administration (USHA)who facilitated large successes in creating housing for the masses at a low cost. Regardless of their success, government-run housing was attacked by conservatives, who saw government intervention as inefficient socialism. In the post-war era, Senator McCarthy from Wisconsin set up Congressional hearings to analyze the condition of housing in the US. He used his congressional committee as a platform to attack public housing and praise the private industry as the true medium through which the country could solve its housing problem. With the passing of the GI Bill, and the construction of "model communities" and new suburbs, housing and education became accessible.Or, so it seemed.
At this point, the American Dream was a house in the suburbs. Of course, this dream was only available to White, Christians, as private housing organizations used redlining and racism to prevent minorities, Blacks and Jews from owning houses. Housing in the post-War era was much different than the "investment" that many saw as housing in the post-Cold War era. To have a house, a stable (white) family with a working father and a housewife mother was a necessary domestic bulwark against Communism. It was a social value more than a financial investment to have a house. Housing was cherished as something you could access, and pay off in about 20 years. A house was not something that a family invested in order to turn it over in a couple years to make money on their original investment. There was a social conscience that encouraged stability, not risk. It was an contradictory society, insomuch that encouraged conformity as a stable obstacle to...conformity. Regardless of the nuanced problems of Cold-War domestic ideology, there was a common enemy to work against, and stability in the home was a sure-fire way to contain that enemy. But, what happened when the myth of the Communist monolith was debunked? In my opinion, the protections given to home owners, coupled with a new generation of excess and greed (See the movie Wall Street) remade housing as just another investment. The richest people in the US became either the tech geniuses, or the real estate moguls. In the last decade, it was 4 times more likely to find someone investing in a house in excess of 2,000 square ft than it was in the 1970s. Housing was connected with financing and easy access to credit for people who recently could not afford mortgage payments allowed for a widespread, albeit unstable, housing market.
Like the instability caused by easy credit access in the Depression era, the instability in the housing market caused a financial crises. But, a recent article in the LA Times has articulated that point that this housing crises is not something that home owners will be able to bounce back from, easily. The article suggests that maybe it's time to return to the post-war era ideology that stability in the home is a pathway to stability in life, and that high risk investments, specially when one cannot possibly afford the consequences is foolish.
Healthcare Debate and Housing (Ooooh...a subtopic)
As promised in the title, I will make a comparison to the Healthcare debate. This is a historical comparison, and has to do with the attempt to build government backed public housing in the New Deal and Post-war eras. As mentioned in the above passages, FDR tried to encourage the growth of public government backed housing in during the Depression in order to give the masses access to affordable housing. This idea was attacked by many groups including the US Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Real Estate Boards and the Savings and Loan League, all who would benefit tremendously from a private housing market. They believed that once the government sold houses, it would come into competition with private industry and undercut progress towards efficient housing. They went so far as to say people would be discouraged from spending on mortgages if they knew the government was in the housing business. The government charged, after FDR's victory in 1937, that housing was a "perpetual social obligation" and that eradication of the slums and providing good housing for low income families was necessary. The government wanted to provide an alternative to private housing that would make sure cost would not be a deciding factor in gauging home quality and access. The government wanted to make housing a right for all Americans and the Real Estate Lobby wanted to encourage renting. They advertised that private companies could offer low cost housing for everyone, and government intervention would undercut competition to lower the cost of quality housing.
During the era, an experiment in cooperative housing became a source of awe. The Greenbelt housing cooperative created by and underwritten by the guidelines of the Resettlement Administration used cooperative business ventures (stores, shopping centers, markets) and a cooperative local government model to create a self-sufficient town model, on a small budget. According to Rosalyn Baxandall and Elizabeth Ewen, authors of "Picture Windows" the cooperative encompassed every aspect of life including preventative medical care, transportation, citizen's associations, baseball teams, newspapers and even a credit union. But this successful experiment was ignored by private housing advocates.
In the post-war era, under the Truman administration, the government passed the Taft Ellender Wagner Act (TEW), which was a conglomerate of New Deal legislation to provide housing for people who the private industry could not assist without taking a profit loss, which made them prime for public assistance. Before he became the Communist witch hunter, Senator Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin had a hearing on housing. He used his position as chairman of the Housing Committee to attack public housing and discredit TEW. He made several highly publicized visits to public housing complexes and declared them decrepit, and a breeding ground for socialists and communists. He showed his bias by giving public housing advocates less time to testify during hearings than private industry analysts. The private housing industry put on a campaign that highlighted the "socialist dangers" of public housing. As "Picture Windows" states, they put out fliers, leaflets, petitions and cartoons to create the illusion that there was a grassroots campaign against public housing. They chose to forget that this grassroots campaign was underwritten and highly organized by the Real Estate Lobby and Savings and Loan, who were both private housing advocates. Private housing advocates also chose to ignore the fact that many private housing companies had failed to provide adequate housing for everyone, especially at a time when home ownership was defined with containment of communists. Lastly, private industry was hell bent on removing government from housing, but they still supported government subsidies to home owners in order to obtain housing. In other words "the real estate interests wanted government out of the construction end of housing, but they were happy to be eating out of the hidden hand of government." (Picture Windows, 114).
Does this all sounds familiar? A system in need of reform is co-opted by the government to provide access to that system because widespread access is an "inherent right." But, government intervention in that said system leads to "socialism" and inefficiency, even though the current system does not provide that service efficiently anyways. And, there is a so-called "grassroots" protest against such an intervention, which is really underwritten by conservative politicians who are against a government role in that system. And, it has been repeated over and over again that the system is an alternative to the public system, whose abuses do not provide services to low income individuals. But, those against a public option in that system are happy to be using a government supported idea, even though they decry that government in the first place. Oh yah...there is also an idea to provide experiments in cooperatives in that system.
Am I being too vague? Is the comparison not extremely obvious?
Government run housing is not so glamorous, now. Just take a look at the projects in NY City or Public Housing in Detroit or East LA. People live in it, but the neighborhood is violent prone, and the quality of housing is low. But, that is because we are willing, without the blink of an eye, or the opening of a history book, to cut funding to public initiatives once a crises caused by unregulated private industry hits us in the pocketbook. We hold on to the idea that private industry is the end all, and that everything else, especially if its government run is inherently inefficient. But, at the same time we need government spending to increase because private industry cannot give universal access to basic rights. Just look at how people hate the idea that the government would ever touch their Medicare.
Is it a sure fact that any government intervention into a highly privatized industry means undercutting of competition, and ultimately more government growth to bolster that industry? Is there any role for government in private industry? What would private industry look like without any government regulation? Can we have a private industry whose services are deemed universal for all Americans, provide those services efficiently without government assistance?
There may never be a clear cut answer to any of these question. But, one thing for sure is that America will never lose its contempt for the government.
Monday, September 21, 2009
International Day of Peace, and a Little History Lesson
September 21st is the International Day of Peace. While unknown to most people, the day is significant because of its noble intentions. I believe that a day so unspecific in its strategy as to be called the "Day of Peace" allows for people to ponder what peace might mean to them, and how they have experienced peace in their lives. Obviously the word "peace" has different meanings, and can oftentimes be warped and abused by those seeking power and control. But, this is where my original perception of the "Day of Peace" comes into play. There are so many definitions of peace and so many varying methods on how "peace" can be obtained that a definition is almost an irrelevant pursuit. For the individual on this day, peace must become a source of introspection on their lives, and how they have experienced "peace." For me, this means looking back at similar events in history and surveying my own lifetime to see different times of peace, and war, which, in my opinion, is oftentimes the opposite of peace.
One event in the last century strikes me as the most significant in the pursuit of peace, and the vanquishing of war. This gesture, passed in the years after WWI, under the most internationally ideological president we have ever had (Woodrow Wilson), was more symbolic than realistic, and like most of Wilson's foreign policies failed miserably. But, it is as symbolically relevant as the International Day of Peace is, and gives the world insight into not only the motivations and causes of WWI, but the reaction that the Western world had to war, death and peace.
In order to grasp such an event, some history needs to be recounted. WWI was considered to first mechanized, mass-scale war that included the likes of machine guns, tanks, flame throwers, biochemical weapons, airplanes and mass scale artillery. On one side was the German, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empire, and on the other was the English, French, Russian and eventually American forces. Millions of soldiers were killed to gain insignificant amounts of land in the stalemate trench warfare across both the Eastern and Western fronts. After anti-war demonstrations, low industrial output and a massive loss of military gain, The 3 Axis Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans) signed an armistice on November 11th, 1918.
The addition of American forces not only turned the tide of the war, but catapulted the US onto the world stage militarily. At Versailles, President Wilson declared that this "Great War" would be the "War to End all Wars." Like a lot of counterparts at home, he saw this war as the result of territory claims and imperialism that was characteristic of the "Old World." Entangling alliances from colonial powers like Russia, Britain, Germany, France and Austria-Hungary had turned a single assassination into a massive, bloody war that left millions dead. These anachronistic alliances and methods of government were too volatile and should be abandoned. But, in the eyes of Lloyd-George of Britain, Clemenceau of France and Orlando of Italy, the US was an upstart nation with no experience in international warfare. Wilson's 14 points, including transparency on international alliances, self determinations for all free nations, freedom of the seas, reduction of armaments, readjustment of borders, trade access and the creation of the League of Nations were idealistic, and fraught with good intention. Compromise destroyed most of the points, and only Wilson's 14th point, the creation of the League of Nations was passed unscathed. As a final blow, after Wilson was unwilling to compromise on US involvement in the League of Nations, a team of "Reservationist" Senators blocked the resolution, and it did not pass. Wilson suffered a stroke while campaigning for participation in the League of Nations, and his wife took presidential responsibility for the rest of his term.
What were the reactions and results of such a monumental failure on a policy that attempted to gain international peace? The concessions by Wilson in the 14 points allowed for the European powers to take colonial revenge on Germany by taking away all of its land claims and putting a monumental $300 billion war debt on their economy. The German economy tanked, and super-duper hyperinflation made the deutschemark useless. The US saw this is a return to the "Old World" of Imperialism, and movements towards isolationism thrived. A candidate, Warren G Harding called for a "Return to Normalcy" and to bolster what makes America great. But, the reactions were not all bad. The European powers in the League of Nations along with the US signed armament reduction treaties, like the 9 and 5 powers pacts, which reduced naval armaments by all participating nations. The US continued its policy of Dollar Diplomacy by injecting capital into the broken economies in Europe, hoping that the mony would return as investments into American companies. Unfortunately, most of these plans including the Dawes Plan to help Germany repay its war reparations only resulted in those nations using the money to pay off debt instead of investing in their economy. This, in part, was the reason for a global depression at the end of the 1920s.
But, what about peace? What was this monumental occurrence that happened after WWI? In 1928, Secretary of State Kellogg, and French foreign minister Briand helped usher in the signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Signed by Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, UK, US and 50 other countries by 1929, it had a lofty goal:
It Outlawed War.
Simple, and unattainable. But, its intentions were clear. None of the nations who signed the pact wanted to see mechanized slaughter, like they experienced in WWI. WWI had wiped out an entire generations of young men. Its ineffectiveness was highlighted in the decade following its signing, as Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and Hitler invaded Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Rhineland at the end of the 1930s, ushering in another World War that would cause the death of 50 million people.
WWI is a lesson in history for most people. There are only a few who can remember living through it, and only a hand-full who remember fighting through it. So, I want to take this space to think about the conflicts that have highlighted my 22.5 year life so far. This retrospective/analysis looks to answer 2 questions: How many civil unrests and wars have I experienced? How many peace accords/pacts in that same time period have been effective?
Wars/Unrest
1. Gulf War 1 (1991)
2. Somalia (1993)
3. Yugoslav Wars (1991)
4. Rwandan Genocide (1994)
5. Military Coup in Pakistan (1999)
6. Civil Wars in the Congo (1990s)
7. Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated (1995)
8. Taliban take Afghanistan (1996)
9. Bosnian ethnic cleansing (1992)
10. Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003)
11. War in Afghanistan (2001)
12. Sept 11th attacks on World Trade Center (2001)
13. 1st World Trade Center Bombing (1993)
14. Oklahoma City Bombing (1995)
15. LA Riots (1992)
16. War in Gaza (2008)
17. War in Lebanon (2007)
18. Violence in Iran following election (2009)
19. Han ethnic violence in China (2009)
20. Military Crackdown in Burma (2008)
21. Chinese crackdown in Tibet (2008)
Peace Accords/Treaties
1. Oslo Accords (1993)
2. Israeli-Jordanian Peace (1994)
3. German Reunification (1990)
4. Release of Nelson Mandela (1994)
5. Belfast Accords (1998)
6. Ethiopian Civil War Ends (1991)
I am sure there are more peace treaties and unrest/war events that I haven't covered. Looking at the peace accord list, the major events like the Oslo Accords between Rabin and Arafat were symbolic. It ensured continued peace talks, but with the assassination of Rabin and Arafat's terrorist ties and inability to govern the new Palestinian Authority, peace was never reached. The Middle East, especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has no discernible end in sight, as hard lined radicals are not willing to compromise. The Palestinian Authority is split between violent factions of Hamas and Fatah and West Bank settlements are still being built. And, many forces in the Middle East refuse to recognize Israel as a state and will only settle for its complete dissolution.
So, on this symbolic International Day of Peace, let's remember the atrocities and violence we experienced in our lives, and the peace attempts that are being made as I write. Progress towards peace can only be obtained by looking back at these situations and realizing the cause of the violence and war. Was our war in Vietnam justified because Communism would destroy the Western World? Were Weapons of Mass Destruction a convincing reason to invade Iraq? Is Afghanistan worth fighting for? Does America have any obligation to act on behalf of a nation in the cause of Democracy? These are questions we should be asking ourselves and our leaders. But more importantly, can we obtain a peaceful resolution to our international conflicts that is actually effective?
One event in the last century strikes me as the most significant in the pursuit of peace, and the vanquishing of war. This gesture, passed in the years after WWI, under the most internationally ideological president we have ever had (Woodrow Wilson), was more symbolic than realistic, and like most of Wilson's foreign policies failed miserably. But, it is as symbolically relevant as the International Day of Peace is, and gives the world insight into not only the motivations and causes of WWI, but the reaction that the Western world had to war, death and peace.
In order to grasp such an event, some history needs to be recounted. WWI was considered to first mechanized, mass-scale war that included the likes of machine guns, tanks, flame throwers, biochemical weapons, airplanes and mass scale artillery. On one side was the German, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empire, and on the other was the English, French, Russian and eventually American forces. Millions of soldiers were killed to gain insignificant amounts of land in the stalemate trench warfare across both the Eastern and Western fronts. After anti-war demonstrations, low industrial output and a massive loss of military gain, The 3 Axis Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans) signed an armistice on November 11th, 1918.
The addition of American forces not only turned the tide of the war, but catapulted the US onto the world stage militarily. At Versailles, President Wilson declared that this "Great War" would be the "War to End all Wars." Like a lot of counterparts at home, he saw this war as the result of territory claims and imperialism that was characteristic of the "Old World." Entangling alliances from colonial powers like Russia, Britain, Germany, France and Austria-Hungary had turned a single assassination into a massive, bloody war that left millions dead. These anachronistic alliances and methods of government were too volatile and should be abandoned. But, in the eyes of Lloyd-George of Britain, Clemenceau of France and Orlando of Italy, the US was an upstart nation with no experience in international warfare. Wilson's 14 points, including transparency on international alliances, self determinations for all free nations, freedom of the seas, reduction of armaments, readjustment of borders, trade access and the creation of the League of Nations were idealistic, and fraught with good intention. Compromise destroyed most of the points, and only Wilson's 14th point, the creation of the League of Nations was passed unscathed. As a final blow, after Wilson was unwilling to compromise on US involvement in the League of Nations, a team of "Reservationist" Senators blocked the resolution, and it did not pass. Wilson suffered a stroke while campaigning for participation in the League of Nations, and his wife took presidential responsibility for the rest of his term.
What were the reactions and results of such a monumental failure on a policy that attempted to gain international peace? The concessions by Wilson in the 14 points allowed for the European powers to take colonial revenge on Germany by taking away all of its land claims and putting a monumental $300 billion war debt on their economy. The German economy tanked, and super-duper hyperinflation made the deutschemark useless. The US saw this is a return to the "Old World" of Imperialism, and movements towards isolationism thrived. A candidate, Warren G Harding called for a "Return to Normalcy" and to bolster what makes America great. But, the reactions were not all bad. The European powers in the League of Nations along with the US signed armament reduction treaties, like the 9 and 5 powers pacts, which reduced naval armaments by all participating nations. The US continued its policy of Dollar Diplomacy by injecting capital into the broken economies in Europe, hoping that the mony would return as investments into American companies. Unfortunately, most of these plans including the Dawes Plan to help Germany repay its war reparations only resulted in those nations using the money to pay off debt instead of investing in their economy. This, in part, was the reason for a global depression at the end of the 1920s.
But, what about peace? What was this monumental occurrence that happened after WWI? In 1928, Secretary of State Kellogg, and French foreign minister Briand helped usher in the signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Signed by Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, UK, US and 50 other countries by 1929, it had a lofty goal:
It Outlawed War.
Simple, and unattainable. But, its intentions were clear. None of the nations who signed the pact wanted to see mechanized slaughter, like they experienced in WWI. WWI had wiped out an entire generations of young men. Its ineffectiveness was highlighted in the decade following its signing, as Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and Hitler invaded Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Rhineland at the end of the 1930s, ushering in another World War that would cause the death of 50 million people.
WWI is a lesson in history for most people. There are only a few who can remember living through it, and only a hand-full who remember fighting through it. So, I want to take this space to think about the conflicts that have highlighted my 22.5 year life so far. This retrospective/analysis looks to answer 2 questions: How many civil unrests and wars have I experienced? How many peace accords/pacts in that same time period have been effective?
Wars/Unrest
1. Gulf War 1 (1991)
2. Somalia (1993)
3. Yugoslav Wars (1991)
4. Rwandan Genocide (1994)
5. Military Coup in Pakistan (1999)
6. Civil Wars in the Congo (1990s)
7. Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated (1995)
8. Taliban take Afghanistan (1996)
9. Bosnian ethnic cleansing (1992)
10. Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003)
11. War in Afghanistan (2001)
12. Sept 11th attacks on World Trade Center (2001)
13. 1st World Trade Center Bombing (1993)
14. Oklahoma City Bombing (1995)
15. LA Riots (1992)
16. War in Gaza (2008)
17. War in Lebanon (2007)
18. Violence in Iran following election (2009)
19. Han ethnic violence in China (2009)
20. Military Crackdown in Burma (2008)
21. Chinese crackdown in Tibet (2008)
Peace Accords/Treaties
1. Oslo Accords (1993)
2. Israeli-Jordanian Peace (1994)
3. German Reunification (1990)
4. Release of Nelson Mandela (1994)
5. Belfast Accords (1998)
6. Ethiopian Civil War Ends (1991)
I am sure there are more peace treaties and unrest/war events that I haven't covered. Looking at the peace accord list, the major events like the Oslo Accords between Rabin and Arafat were symbolic. It ensured continued peace talks, but with the assassination of Rabin and Arafat's terrorist ties and inability to govern the new Palestinian Authority, peace was never reached. The Middle East, especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has no discernible end in sight, as hard lined radicals are not willing to compromise. The Palestinian Authority is split between violent factions of Hamas and Fatah and West Bank settlements are still being built. And, many forces in the Middle East refuse to recognize Israel as a state and will only settle for its complete dissolution.
So, on this symbolic International Day of Peace, let's remember the atrocities and violence we experienced in our lives, and the peace attempts that are being made as I write. Progress towards peace can only be obtained by looking back at these situations and realizing the cause of the violence and war. Was our war in Vietnam justified because Communism would destroy the Western World? Were Weapons of Mass Destruction a convincing reason to invade Iraq? Is Afghanistan worth fighting for? Does America have any obligation to act on behalf of a nation in the cause of Democracy? These are questions we should be asking ourselves and our leaders. But more importantly, can we obtain a peaceful resolution to our international conflicts that is actually effective?
Thursday, September 17, 2009
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I have given in and joined Twitter.
See everyone on the dark side.
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See everyone on the dark side.
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Become a follower.
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